dark, steady voice split for the chorus, her gentle low notes letting Aurora reach upward and keeping Bella grounded—‘Why should the heart sink away?’ Aurora was so gratefully fond of Clover that she could not help smiling at her, and then she could feel, almost like the press of a hand, the returned pleasure of the audience in their singing, and in their liking for one another.
‘Making my heart, making my heart
In its sorrow rejoice …’
They did not make too much of a meal out of the ending, but allowed the audience to remember being sad and then feeling a bit better. No going up on that last note, as some singers did; Mama felt anything show-offy ruined the song’s genuine sentiment.
After that, how enjoyable to feel the tempo change to Buffalo Gals, and slip behind Bella while she glided forward, close to the glowing footlights that cast such a rosy shine onto their faces, Bella’s now mischievous, happy to be in the blushing light, the limelight. She knew she was a very good gal, clowning: she found the crowd happy as she was herself, on her gangly feet.
‘Her feet took up the whole sidewalk,
And left no room for me.
Oh-oh-oh! Buffalo Gals, won’t you come out tonight …’
Aurora and Clover danced shuffling swoops behind her, almost mocking her—but that was just what the song had in mind, for someone to poke a bit of cheerful fun at themselves. She was the gal with the hole in her stocking whose heel kept a-knocking, and weren’t they all lucky to be having such a good time? But wait, Bella seemed to say, when she waved a flip goodbye at the end, because here’s the real treat! The band swept into Don’t Dilly-Dally. Many people in the audience perked up and started to hum along. ‘Not too much of that,’ Mama had warned. ‘Cleveland won’t like it if you turn his vaudeville into a common music hall, but you don’t have to squelch them either.’
Aurora grabbed the birdcage from behind the downstage leg and went into the spotlight all forlorn, a lost girl in the city. ‘My old man said, “Follow the van, And don’t dilly-dally on the way …’ ” Nice as it was to be centre stage, taking sympathy from the sea of faces down below, Aurora disliked this song. She wended through long verses about chamber pots (which they’d ditch tomorrow if Mrs. Cleveland happened to carp), into the chorus again. But by then the crowd was turning its attention to the programme, wondering what came next. She could see them shift in their seats, and only managed to keep panic from entering her voice by pushing it louder, which did not work.
Chorus again, this one the last: ‘My old man said, Follow the van, don’t dilly-dally on the way!’—and then, a terrible blank.
The music went on alone. She had forgotten the lyrics.
She looked over at Mendel in a panic and saw his head swivel quickly to look at her, and then an eyebrow lifted—he reached the end of the bar and swung his hand around in a circle to the band as if he’d meant to do that all along. A cheerful broad-faced lady in the audience took that as encouragement and sang along gaily, ‘My old man,’ and when they got to the second line it came back into Aurora’s head and she sang on, ‘Off went the cart with our home packed in it, I walked behind with my old cock linnet,’ while cold horror ran through her: she had forgotten the words. The stupidest of sins.
Bella nudged Clover to join in, and they sang along with the lady in the front row, rising up into a loud triumph on ‘Can’t find my way home!’ Aurora bobbed a curtsy to thank her for the lines, and knocked her head to show that it was empty.
Then the audience was all clapping, as much for their own woman as for the girls.
It was over. Except that they still had one song to go, and it was mostly hers to sing. So Aurora had to put despair aside. The Last Rose of Summer was Papa’s favourite. She knew the words inside her bones, because the sentences made perfect sense; it was the saddest song in the world, except you could not let the audience feel so much sadness, so you tempered it a little.
‘So soon may I follow when friendships decay
And from love’s shining circle the gems drop away.
When true